Blue Jays: Springer Player of the Week, Manoah Rookie of the Month

The 2020 MLB regular season came to an end with the Toronto Blue Jays missing out on the playoffs by one game.

The offseason should see a lot of attention towards different players on the club garnering individual awards for their season’s production, but while we wait for those announcements, the club received Player of the Week and Rookie of the Month awards on Monday.

Major League Baseball announced that George Springer won the AL Player of the Week award after he went 13 for 26 (.500) at the plate over six games.  Springer had six extra-base hits including three home runs and 10 RBI, as well as having a trio of 3-hit games.  Over his last eight games, Springer saw his average climb 30 points to finish the season with a slash line of .264/.352/.555.  The award was Springer’s third time winning the Player of the Week this season as he also won it in each of the first two weeks of August.

I would be confident to say that had the Blue Jays had a healthy Springer for at least three-quarters of the season they would likely still be playing October baseball.  Springer was placed on the injured list three different times during the year as well as playing through an injured knee for the majority of September.  Despite only playing in 78 games, the veteran center fielder still collected 19 doubles and 22 home runs.

Monday afternoon, Major League Baseball announced the Blue Jays’ George Springer as Player of the Week and Alek Manoah as the Rookie of the Month.

Major League Baseball also announced that Alek Manoah was the winner of the AL Rookie of the Month award for September.  This was the first time a Blue Jays player had won the award since Lourdes Gurriel Jr. took it home back in July 2018.  Including his last start, which was in October and counts for the Monthly award, Manoah started six games for the Blue Jays.  During that time he posted a 4-0 record with a 3.38 ERA while striking out 41 batters over 37.1 innings pitched.  The 6’6” right-hander struck out 10 batters in two of those games and finished his last four games with 35 strikeouts in just 26.2 innings pitched.

This was the first time Manoah had won the award and he should also receive some votes for Rookie of the Year, but as he did not get called up until late May, he will likely fall short of the award.  Manoah started the season with the Buffalo Bisons in Triple-A where he posted a 3-0 record, allowed just one run over 18 innings, and posted a 0.56 WHIP while striking out 27 batters.  Once called up to the big leagues, Manoah proved he was major league ready and posted a 9-2 record over 20 starts with a 3.22 ERA and 1.05 WHIP while averaging 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings.

Congratulations to both Manoah and Springer on the awards.